Saw Samurai Rebellion, a samurai film about a family who is asked to marry one of their sons to one of their lord's unruly wives. They begrudgingly accept but once the woman arrives, she's a lovely lady. It turns out she was unruly because the lord split up her previous relationship to have her to himself. But now that she's integrated into the new family, the lord demands her back again. Her son is next in line for the lord-ship and so she has to taken from her husband's side and shipped back to the castle. Boy that stinks.
Shockingly for a samurai movie, the film does not involve assassinating bureaucrats in transit at all! There is a big fight in the denouement and much political machinations, but the core of the film is the seering injustice done to this woman and to this family. The lords and powers that be keep making vague allusions to increased fiefdoms and greater money, but these promises are always for some golden tomorrow and never materialize today.
Once again, the authority of some middle-manager is questioned. The Emperor knows nothing of this provincial squabble of course and much energy is spent preventing word from reaching him. The Emperor would surely be just and fair, it's just these middlemen who are so shockingly corrupt. Even worse than them are the confederates in the household: a scheming mother in law and an easily manipulated (and physically ugly) brother.
I enjoyed this film. It was a bit of departure from the conventional samurai story (thank god) and the plot was more like a chess match than a brawl. There were subtle feints and counter-feints delivered via letter, rather than via sword-point. I think normally I would have been too groggy to keep track of these baroque plotlines, but I was alert enough today. Interesting film.
Sep 30, 2018
Santa Sangre
Saw Santa Sangre, a weird weird film by Jodorowsky, creator of such weird-fests as Holy Mountain and El Topo. This one follows a boy magician who is the son of a knife-thrower and a religious cult leader/trapeze artist. He witnesses his mother's arms being cut off and becomes his mother's arms. This is played out via semi-grotesque vaudeville routines where the boy stands behind his armless mother as she smokes or eats or plays the piano.
The film is one of a fine tradition of Mexican psychodrama/horrors. It's not terribly horrific, but there's nonsensical armchair psychiatry explanations for the protagonist's actions and endless arm-related references. There's also a great abundance of Freudian symbolism. At one point the protagonist, face contorted with horror, pulls a boa constrictor out of his pants.
The film is more interested in weird imagery however. The trappings of the circus are used liberally, with mincing clowns, self-serious dwarves, and garish face-paint used to unsettle the viewer. It's not very scary or thrilling however and many times the film totally bogs down to focus in on some spectacle. The images are neat however, so it's worth a look, just don't put it into your midnight horror marathon. A strange, fun film full of strange, fun images!
The film is one of a fine tradition of Mexican psychodrama/horrors. It's not terribly horrific, but there's nonsensical armchair psychiatry explanations for the protagonist's actions and endless arm-related references. There's also a great abundance of Freudian symbolism. At one point the protagonist, face contorted with horror, pulls a boa constrictor out of his pants.
The film is more interested in weird imagery however. The trappings of the circus are used liberally, with mincing clowns, self-serious dwarves, and garish face-paint used to unsettle the viewer. It's not very scary or thrilling however and many times the film totally bogs down to focus in on some spectacle. The images are neat however, so it's worth a look, just don't put it into your midnight horror marathon. A strange, fun film full of strange, fun images!
Colorful
Saw Colorful, a cute film about a spirit who is injected into the body of a recently suicided school boy. The spirit has no knowledge of this kid's previous life and personality, what drove him to suicide, but must live a "good life" to be reconsidered for the karmic wheel. So most of the film is taken up with the spirit discovering this kid's past and dealing with the many problems this kid was facing.
The film is prettily drawn and naturalistic. The spiritual stuff is mostly handled in the intro and by a supernatural little boy character who is basically a narrator that only the protagonist can see. The boy's problems mostly revolve around his love life and his relationship to his mother. This leads to some super-uncomfortable scenes where the increasingly visibly suffering mother tries to apologise for whatever drove him to suicide by making him elaborate western-style dinners. The spirit in the boy's body, despite not knowing this woman, hates her and bullies her mercilessly. As the plot unfolds, we find she's not exactly blameless but those scenes sure are painful to watch. I think she's meant to be so cringing and pathetic that we don't feel bad for her, but this only heightens the pathos for me.
Anyway, apart from all of that, the film is a sort of optimistic, sweet, coming-of-age film about second chances and living fully. The colors of the title refers to a kind of tortured metaphor about people being made up of many pigments. Because the protagonist is inheriting the suicidal boy's life, it doesn't really care about that life, but as it grows (and, as a child grows) it becomes aware that its actions have consequences which make it feel shitty.
The film is a sweet melodrama. Things are kind of overwrought, but we start out with some sort of situation that would drive a kid to suicide, so the stakes are already high. A sweet little movie.
The film is prettily drawn and naturalistic. The spiritual stuff is mostly handled in the intro and by a supernatural little boy character who is basically a narrator that only the protagonist can see. The boy's problems mostly revolve around his love life and his relationship to his mother. This leads to some super-uncomfortable scenes where the increasingly visibly suffering mother tries to apologise for whatever drove him to suicide by making him elaborate western-style dinners. The spirit in the boy's body, despite not knowing this woman, hates her and bullies her mercilessly. As the plot unfolds, we find she's not exactly blameless but those scenes sure are painful to watch. I think she's meant to be so cringing and pathetic that we don't feel bad for her, but this only heightens the pathos for me.
Anyway, apart from all of that, the film is a sort of optimistic, sweet, coming-of-age film about second chances and living fully. The colors of the title refers to a kind of tortured metaphor about people being made up of many pigments. Because the protagonist is inheriting the suicidal boy's life, it doesn't really care about that life, but as it grows (and, as a child grows) it becomes aware that its actions have consequences which make it feel shitty.
The film is a sweet melodrama. Things are kind of overwrought, but we start out with some sort of situation that would drive a kid to suicide, so the stakes are already high. A sweet little movie.
Sep 23, 2018
Loves of a Blonde
Saw Loves of a Blonde, a Czech film about a blonde girl's romances. She starts off dating a kind of rough boy who has a scooter. She then meets up with a trio of middle-aged army men. Lastly, she meets up with a younger pianist. The film is not a comedy but has comical parts. The girl is a factory worker during the Stalinist period. She's cloistered with other girls and clearly interested in having a relationship. The army men are explicitly sent to the village to cheer the women up and obliquely (I believe) to produce more sons for the war effort. The women are treated as livestock, kept closed up and guarded through social convention and manipulation until they pair up. At one point, a woman turns into a mannequin in a TV show. Women are objects.
So what of this woman? She is young and looking for her first serious boyfriend. She's startled by the pushiness of her first boyfriend and put off by the unstated but unsubtle expectations of the middle-aged army men. The pianist is kind and clumsy, clearly trying to be manipulative but in a kind of endearing, inept way. Even so, a casual teenage romp is not very acceptable in 1960s Prague. She's in trouble no matter where she turns.
The film sounds kind of dismal but it's comical. There's long circular arguments where men harangue each other and swap sides of the argument. The army men send a bottle of wine to the blonde and her friends but the idiot waiter gives the bottle to a trio of dowdy ladies instead. The theme is depressing but the subject matter is pleasant enough. It is a Czech comedy from the 60s, so don't expect audible laughter, but it's hardly a depression-fest.
I found the film a little dower but winning. It wasn't the prestige piece I was expecting, but more winsome and kind of sweet. The inevitable social opprobrium is delivered in a goofy way, via henpecked husbands and nagging wives. The film acknowledges everyone's failings but in an indulgent, kind way which may have been revolutionary for all I know. Maybe, the film says, we don't have to be so uptight?
So what of this woman? She is young and looking for her first serious boyfriend. She's startled by the pushiness of her first boyfriend and put off by the unstated but unsubtle expectations of the middle-aged army men. The pianist is kind and clumsy, clearly trying to be manipulative but in a kind of endearing, inept way. Even so, a casual teenage romp is not very acceptable in 1960s Prague. She's in trouble no matter where she turns.
The film sounds kind of dismal but it's comical. There's long circular arguments where men harangue each other and swap sides of the argument. The army men send a bottle of wine to the blonde and her friends but the idiot waiter gives the bottle to a trio of dowdy ladies instead. The theme is depressing but the subject matter is pleasant enough. It is a Czech comedy from the 60s, so don't expect audible laughter, but it's hardly a depression-fest.
I found the film a little dower but winning. It wasn't the prestige piece I was expecting, but more winsome and kind of sweet. The inevitable social opprobrium is delivered in a goofy way, via henpecked husbands and nagging wives. The film acknowledges everyone's failings but in an indulgent, kind way which may have been revolutionary for all I know. Maybe, the film says, we don't have to be so uptight?
Sep 22, 2018
Sword of the Stranger
Saw Sword of the Stranger, a very pretty anime about a nameless man with a sword (so cool!) protecting a little boy who is some kind of Chosen One. Against them are a troupe of villainous Chinese warriors who have guns and take drugs to numb their pain (what decadence! Boo! Hiss!) Also involved are the Japanese officials who only get in the way (this film was made in 2007). All of that is just window-dressing however. The real reason for the film is the fight scenes.
The film is beautifully drawn and animated. Each gout of blood is individualized and drawn true-to-life. Each broken arm realistically dangles from its sockets. At one point, a guy's hand cuts cut nearly in half and the other half dangles from his stump, like two halves of a sausage, held together by the skin. The non-fighting scenes are done fairly well. I never felt a character was behaving unrealistically, and I never got lost in the plot, even thought the plot gets quite knotty at parts. But when we fight, we get swooning orchestras, keening wood flutes, and visual metaphors. The fights don't totally overwhelm the picture but I feel the film started out as a series of fights and a plot was invented post facto to hang them all together.
The macguffin which the boy is the Chosen One for grants immortality and so there's some nice philosophical jabbing back and forth about who really wants to live forever and what they would do with all that time. This is nice juxtaposition with the fights which are all to-the-death (naturally.) The film is very violent, but mostly pretty. It was a sort of over-indulgent film, packed with overwrought emotions and badass posturing. I thought it was kind of silly, but of course I did. A very pretty film.
The film is beautifully drawn and animated. Each gout of blood is individualized and drawn true-to-life. Each broken arm realistically dangles from its sockets. At one point, a guy's hand cuts cut nearly in half and the other half dangles from his stump, like two halves of a sausage, held together by the skin. The non-fighting scenes are done fairly well. I never felt a character was behaving unrealistically, and I never got lost in the plot, even thought the plot gets quite knotty at parts. But when we fight, we get swooning orchestras, keening wood flutes, and visual metaphors. The fights don't totally overwhelm the picture but I feel the film started out as a series of fights and a plot was invented post facto to hang them all together.
The macguffin which the boy is the Chosen One for grants immortality and so there's some nice philosophical jabbing back and forth about who really wants to live forever and what they would do with all that time. This is nice juxtaposition with the fights which are all to-the-death (naturally.) The film is very violent, but mostly pretty. It was a sort of over-indulgent film, packed with overwrought emotions and badass posturing. I thought it was kind of silly, but of course I did. A very pretty film.
Sep 16, 2018
Begotten
Saw Begotten, a grainy sort of art film that opens on a man killing himself. He seems to be cutting his own throat, but the film quality is so poor and so grainy that he may well be squirting chocolate sauce on his neck. Once he is dead, a woman emerges from behind a curtain and copulates with him. The film carries on like this, mixing sex and death and being fairly repulsive along the way.
It's got a fair share of arresting images which I really liked but unfortunately these images are usually milked past the point of yielding returns. Sometimes the symbolism of a film is the most direct way of talking about abstract things, but here I feel the effect is too coarse, too grainy. It feels willfully obscure. The closing credits, for example, reveal the woman to be "mother earth". How are supposed to know this? We aren't.
The film feels like an overgrown music video. There are some interesting images and a general theme of death and rebirth becomes apparent, but it would have been better I think if it were cut to about a third the run-time and put to some music. Indeed Marilyn Manson, that great magpie of creepy images, has cannibalized this film for one of his music videos. As is, the soundtrack is mostly frog croaks and bird tweets. It's meant to evoke a bog (death a rebirth, see?) A slog of a film. It wouldn't stand up to much mockery. Approach with friends looking for a spooky time.
It's got a fair share of arresting images which I really liked but unfortunately these images are usually milked past the point of yielding returns. Sometimes the symbolism of a film is the most direct way of talking about abstract things, but here I feel the effect is too coarse, too grainy. It feels willfully obscure. The closing credits, for example, reveal the woman to be "mother earth". How are supposed to know this? We aren't.
The film feels like an overgrown music video. There are some interesting images and a general theme of death and rebirth becomes apparent, but it would have been better I think if it were cut to about a third the run-time and put to some music. Indeed Marilyn Manson, that great magpie of creepy images, has cannibalized this film for one of his music videos. As is, the soundtrack is mostly frog croaks and bird tweets. It's meant to evoke a bog (death a rebirth, see?) A slog of a film. It wouldn't stand up to much mockery. Approach with friends looking for a spooky time.
Sep 8, 2018
Samurai Assassin
Saw Samurai Assassin, another samurai film. True to form, this one also involved a conspiracy to murder a government official. However, it seems there's a mole in the assassination conspiracy. Who is the mole? Can it be the protagonist, a rough-mannered and penniless ronin, looking to make his name, or could it be the rich conspirator, who spends his days studying poetry and the blade in his mansion? I had my suspicions going in, but I won't spoil it for you.
This one also featured surprising family connections, gold-hearted geishas, and impossibly intricate clan/dojo/government schemes. Everyone is spying on everyone and I couldn't follow who these people were most of the time.
There's some obscure references to the changing times. The rich conspirator claims his motivation to be "readying Japan for the future" and talks of English and American trading vessels. The man who they want to assassinate also talks of himself being the only man who can usher samurais into the next era. Something's being referenced here if not outright commented on.
As you might guess, this one left me fairly cold. This at least partly my fault (I couldn't follow parts of the plot and didn't try to especially.) but also the film itself is very true-to-genre and cliche-riddled. It wasn't cliche-ed enough that I could predict plot points, but nothing really broke out of the rigid samurai-assassinates-a-government-employee mold (which I did not even know was a thing before I started on this list of samurai films.) I feel like I've seen all of these parts before.
This one also featured surprising family connections, gold-hearted geishas, and impossibly intricate clan/dojo/government schemes. Everyone is spying on everyone and I couldn't follow who these people were most of the time.
There's some obscure references to the changing times. The rich conspirator claims his motivation to be "readying Japan for the future" and talks of English and American trading vessels. The man who they want to assassinate also talks of himself being the only man who can usher samurais into the next era. Something's being referenced here if not outright commented on.
As you might guess, this one left me fairly cold. This at least partly my fault (I couldn't follow parts of the plot and didn't try to especially.) but also the film itself is very true-to-genre and cliche-riddled. It wasn't cliche-ed enough that I could predict plot points, but nothing really broke out of the rigid samurai-assassinates-a-government-employee mold (which I did not even know was a thing before I started on this list of samurai films.) I feel like I've seen all of these parts before.
In a Year with 13 Moons
Saw In a Year with 13 Moons, a fairly dismal film by Fassbinder about a transsexual woman trying to find a place to fit in the world. We discover her in a relationship-ending fight with her current boyfriend and follow her life backwards from that point, eventually revealing what drove her to change her sex. We discover that she was abandoned by her parents and left in a bureaucratic limbo by the German government. Unable to be adopted, she got a job in a slaughterhouse, and then as a prostitute, wryly remarking that she traded one job in the meat industry for another.
The film deals heavily with identity and reality (a theme that Fassbinder also explored in World on a Wire.) We see the relationship-ending argument from the start of the film be repeated in an old movie. Were the protagonist and her boyfriend merely repeating what they'd seen on TV? We see a shoot-out which turns out to be a film shoot, the characters talk of "becoming" someone for the sake of their lovers or friends, and of course the protagonist is a woman in a man's body (or is she?) The notion of a deeper reality behind the perception is visited again and again.
The film is fairly glum however. The protagonist just wants a niche to fit into but they are unsuccessful in everything; as a woman, as a man, as this one's lover, as that one's. Strangulation is another repeated concept, as circumstances close in on our protagonist.
There's a sense of nervousness to film, as it keeps worrying over the same ideas, visiting and revisiting them. Juxtaposition is used to give the film a surreal air and Fassbinder's camera is in no rush, preferring to wait and watch as events unfold in eternal longshots. The film is slow and dense, interesting but not exciting. I found it sort of a slog but it's definitely got something on under the surface.
The film deals heavily with identity and reality (a theme that Fassbinder also explored in World on a Wire.) We see the relationship-ending argument from the start of the film be repeated in an old movie. Were the protagonist and her boyfriend merely repeating what they'd seen on TV? We see a shoot-out which turns out to be a film shoot, the characters talk of "becoming" someone for the sake of their lovers or friends, and of course the protagonist is a woman in a man's body (or is she?) The notion of a deeper reality behind the perception is visited again and again.
The film is fairly glum however. The protagonist just wants a niche to fit into but they are unsuccessful in everything; as a woman, as a man, as this one's lover, as that one's. Strangulation is another repeated concept, as circumstances close in on our protagonist.
There's a sense of nervousness to film, as it keeps worrying over the same ideas, visiting and revisiting them. Juxtaposition is used to give the film a surreal air and Fassbinder's camera is in no rush, preferring to wait and watch as events unfold in eternal longshots. The film is slow and dense, interesting but not exciting. I found it sort of a slog but it's definitely got something on under the surface.
Sep 3, 2018
Looking for Alibrandi
Saw Looking for Alibrandi, an Australian coming of age story about an independent-minded Italian girl butting heads with the powerful traditions of her family and also with the traditionalism of Australian society. As one of her friends bluntly puts it, "each sticks with their own stock."
Fathers and lovers feature prominently. Both have impacted the lives of the protagonist and her mother (and her mother's mother.) The girl herself goes to a Catholic school, once again re-enforcing this struggle of tradition vs modern times. She hopes to ace her exams and become a lawyer or a politician or someone respectable and enviable. She has been warned by her family not to let men ruin her life (as they have the lives of her ancestors) but she is of an age where guys are difficult to ignore. Indeed, the film revolves almost entirely around the relationship between her and the men in her life.
True to genre, the film is breazy and sort of strident. We are meant to be left with the feeling that everything will work out somehow or other, but this is not the most satisfying. The film is satisfying in its untidiness however. After all we can't always know what happens next. Even in films with satisfying endings we could ask "and then what?"
This is a fun, pleasant little film. It didn't blow me away but then the target demographic is teenagers feeling the oppressive burden of family ties. The fourth-wall breaking is nice and serves as a fun break from the drama. I enjoyed the drama itself, mostly because it frequently tips into melodrama. A fun film.
Fathers and lovers feature prominently. Both have impacted the lives of the protagonist and her mother (and her mother's mother.) The girl herself goes to a Catholic school, once again re-enforcing this struggle of tradition vs modern times. She hopes to ace her exams and become a lawyer or a politician or someone respectable and enviable. She has been warned by her family not to let men ruin her life (as they have the lives of her ancestors) but she is of an age where guys are difficult to ignore. Indeed, the film revolves almost entirely around the relationship between her and the men in her life.
True to genre, the film is breazy and sort of strident. We are meant to be left with the feeling that everything will work out somehow or other, but this is not the most satisfying. The film is satisfying in its untidiness however. After all we can't always know what happens next. Even in films with satisfying endings we could ask "and then what?"
This is a fun, pleasant little film. It didn't blow me away but then the target demographic is teenagers feeling the oppressive burden of family ties. The fourth-wall breaking is nice and serves as a fun break from the drama. I enjoyed the drama itself, mostly because it frequently tips into melodrama. A fun film.
Sep 2, 2018
Cold Prey 2
Saw Cold Prey 2, a Norwegian horror film which picks up shortly after the events of the first film. As in the first film, this one takes its time building the characters and their relationships before introducing the Big Bad. Who the Big Bad is is also interesting by the way. Spoiler alert but they killed the baddy in the first film, so is it his ghost, his family, the surviving female perhaps, gone mad with PTSD? I won't spoil it but its a neat solution which feels clever and earned.
Anyway, the film is very by-the-numbers once it gets going. Fake-out scares give way to plot-relevant scares, adorable moppets are perpetually in grave danger, and doorknobs prove to be the most difficult thing to operate in the world. The film has few real surprises after the first half hour. There's a bit more mythos-building but it's stuff you could almost guess given that this is a horror film (troubled children! Mutilated animals!!)
There's one really nice shot in the rearview mirror of a car near the start that I really really liked, and a late-game fake-out which turns into a genuinely funny joke. Apart from that, very by the numbers.
Anyway, the film is very by-the-numbers once it gets going. Fake-out scares give way to plot-relevant scares, adorable moppets are perpetually in grave danger, and doorknobs prove to be the most difficult thing to operate in the world. The film has few real surprises after the first half hour. There's a bit more mythos-building but it's stuff you could almost guess given that this is a horror film (troubled children! Mutilated animals!!)
There's one really nice shot in the rearview mirror of a car near the start that I really really liked, and a late-game fake-out which turns into a genuinely funny joke. Apart from that, very by the numbers.
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